This will sadly definitely be Alice’s last litter.  Every pregnancy and birth so far has been fraught with intrigue, drama, suspense, taking you from to the depths of despair to ecstatic highs.  This will be her third litter, and although each one so far has had a Hollywood happy ending, I think it would be pushing Lady Luck one step too far to try another time.

Just getting her to the point of pregnancy was not easy.  She went to visit her hubby, the gorgeous Ch Turbo Diesel, last year, but sadly, despite his best efforts, kept a firm grip on her eggs.  I let her have one call, then decided to mate her on her next call.  She remained resolutely silent until Christmas Day, when she woke the entire household, and probably the neighbours with incredibly loud “WWWWAAAHHHHing”.  As I didn’t fancy phoning Doreen to say “hold that turkey, Alice is coming up to Diesel”, that call went unrequited.  We did get there in the end, and this time Alice did get pregnant, obviously, as otherwise there would be no need for another Saikou kitten diary.

Nothing ever goes to plan with Alice and she developed an on off discharge with 3 weeks of her pregnancy left to go.  As she in all other ways was fit, healthy eating well then the vet just prescribed antibiotics and a lets see how she goes diagnosis.

She looked really well through out, I could feel movement, although the discharge served as a huge dark cloud hanging over the proceedings.  Her due date, came and went, nothing unusual for Alice, she loves to keep me in suspense, so I was ready for yet another wait until day 70, when day 68, just after lunch on 27th April, she went into labour.

I was prepared for the worst, and sadly the first baby born, although perfect, a beautiful oriental blue boy, could not be revived.  Despite both mine and Alice’s best efforts his little soul was not ready for this earthly plane and he returned to the Rainbow Bridge.  She started pushing again after a short space of time, and quite quickly out popped a Siamese boy.  He was very sluggish, and didn’t seem to want to come round, it took a while to get him to breathe properly, and very worryingly, he wanted to keep his little back feet all tucked in.  He just didn’t seem to have any go in him at all, no little squeaks or anything.  I had to put him on a heat pad, as she pushing again and just about to have another baby.  This time an oriental black boy, she only does boys.  Unlike his older brother, he came out feisty and ready to take on the world.  I sorted him out and put him back with Mum and he started rooting for a teat straight away, shouting his disgust that the bloody things weren’t easier to find.

I knew that was it and she was all done.  So changed all her bedding, added plenty of sources of heat, and gave Alice something to eat and drink..  The little Siamese boy still didn’t look too good, he was very quiet and bluey despite being on a heat pad, and he worried me greatly, but only time would tell……….